WHY SPIELBERG IS OPENING LATEST FILM OVERSEAS FIRST

At the premiere of his latest film, The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn, in Brussels Saturday night, Steven Spielberg explained why he was releasing the movie in Europe first — it officially opens there on Wednesday — before bringing it to the U.S. in December. “To highjack Tintin and bring it to America first, and then release it overseas second, would be something that would not have even occurred to us,” the Associated Press quoted Spielberg as saying. “From the outset, the plan was to give Tintin back to the countries where Tintin was the most beloved.” Tintin was perhaps best beloved in Belgium, the home of its creator, the late Hergé. Belgian movie critics gave the movie their crucial seal of approval. Brussels’s De Morgen paper headlined: “Action, adventure, and slapstick: Spielberg’s Tintin movie has it all.”